Amy wrote:Is it possible to fall in "love" with a person or thing created and contained entirely by and within your own mind?

I think, you need the input of a sensory impression that you begin to like a thing or fall in love with a other human. Think of Narziss who felt in love with his own reflection he saw in the pond.After that he began to create the rest in his mind.No affection without interaction !

Reality is Reality. Reality (when known) can either be accepted or rejected. Sometimes when reality is not liked it is openly rejected and other times it is rejected, but in a less overt way, hence MISintrepretation. One person can misintrepret another (either favorably or unfavorably) and thus react based upon a distorted reality.

In some situations Reality is not known and the mind begins to postulate. When this happens one can react based upon their presuppositions and assumptions about that which either is not known or cannot be known. Certainly a person could fall in love with their own suppositions about another person believing that the person upon whom they bestowed their love actually embodied said characteristics.

This happens all the time in religion. Especially in todays "postmodern" christianity where each individual believes in a different Jesus and claims he is the same one. However, one Jesus is a universalist, one a Calvinist, another an arminian and so on. Rather than search to understand then know where the extent of your knowledge is and withhold judgement; people seek for what pleases them.

The same can be said concerning finding "love". People concoct in their mind what is ideal then find a person they think fits based upon a limited number of facts and then become angry when their "love" acts inconsistent with the "love" they created in their mind. This they cannot understand, and you hear things like " You're not the person I married" or after years in a relationship, "who are you?" and such like.

Simple answer, YES people do "create" others but usually they apply those traits to something already in existence in a limited way. As to whether someone can create something in the mind entirely from scratch, that's the answer to the ontological argument isn't it?

I was once told that many people fall in love not with the people they think they are in love with, but with the image they have in their mind of how they think that person is. Of course, the image is not the person, and when the person does something or acts in a way that doesn't fit the preconceived image, they get hurt, angry, disappointed. This is more common than we might think. Think of how many people are hurt by lovers without suspecting anything beforehand. Worse, think of how sociopaths can get away with so much in society. It is partly because so many cant see what is before their eyes. Charles Manson's followers certainly had a different image of Manson in their minds than others with more sense did. So I think you have touched on something more important and more fra-reaching than you may have realised.

As for falling in love with images created entirely in one's mind, I think that it's not likely, since most people want something real to attach their affections to. In sum, I agree with Geoff.

Well, once I had a dream and there was this girl and we were walking through autumn trees and I felt the most intense love. My bishop remained floppy but there was something magical circling round there that I have recently felt in reality walking with this girl so fiction can have similar effects as reality. I think that this feeling is lust...but differentiated so that it is nice. I awoke fell down the stairs carpet burned my back all the way down my spine leapt to the phone panting ooh I will ring her ooh whither turned be we a-going today? But there was no number in my mind so all I was left with was a great burning feeling. On my back. It was all brown and crusty. I scraped it up and ate it for breakfast for the protein. Back au train-train from the oh so pleasant fictional hiatus thence. Back to listening to old Dr. Dre tracks while doing pullups until me latissimi dorsi rip.

It is more possible however to see a person in reality and wish so greatly that they be a certain way that they in some sense be different as they indeed do bear some positives in your opinion. If you have not seen them for a while your mind can construct a 'filtered' image thereof, that's to say negative aspects of the person are deleted and replaced with greatness. Then you can in a way be in love with something that only partially does not exist.